I can finally breathe again! 
Sometimes you know the next x days or weeks will have to be done in survival mode. That was me 2 weeks ago. 
Kingsday was getting closer (SO much work still to be done, and flea markets are not my hobby), but also the day that our street will be closed off because we’ll switch from gas to district heating. And we still had a gas stove. 
I also had to do an audio recording with a child (preferably good enough this first try), using my new equipment I had never used before. Also my bestie had a recital, and me not going would be a disaster (to me), AND we had to visit family for something really important, and not going was -again- not an option (for me). And more. All while building my new website.
The gas situation 🔥
Two weeks ago. At this point, our street is accessible for traffic up to our front door. The rest of the street is a gaping hole with pipes all over the place. They planned to start with the part in front of our house around the 1st of May, making our house unreachable. However, we still had a 90cm gas stove built-in in our kitchen. This stove had to go, and it would leave a 90cm gap. We kind of had 2 weeks left to get a new stove and get rid of the old one.
I first wanted to fill this gap with a piece of look-a-like countertop with an induction hob, look-a-like cabinets and a mini-oven, but this would be a ton of work, not very neat, it would still cost money, and it wouldn’t be very beneficial for selling the house. So we decided: a 90cm induction stove would be the best investment. I soon found one that was for sale at multiple webshops (see picture!), but problem: by law deliverers are not allowed to carry stoves wider than 60cm to our house on the first floor.
Luckily I am ok with telephone calls, and with (quite) some extra money, we could “arrange something”. Although this part went quite well, it stressed me out! What if the stairs are too steep, our electricity not suitable, or what if the streets would be closed off early?? 
Friday-Saturday-Sunday
Friday. I had to do an audio recording for a friend, with a kid (who did awesome by the way), with my new equipment, in my noisy apartment, in my echo-y living room. And preferably, the recording had to be good enough in one go. I think it went well, but worriiiees.
Saturday. My best friend had a recital with her theatre group. She’d worked really hard for a very long time for it. However, I knew there would be former colleagues (what are the odds…), I had never been there before, I was already worrying about Sunday, and also loudness and crowds. I packed hearing protection, tissues, and… I panicked. I could hold it in, up to the moment we had to go. But total overwhelm came and I knew then and there… this was impossible. I felt HORRIBLE. But my husband said; it’s not the end of the world, and friend will understand (and she did 
). At the heat of the despair, we saw a rainbow outside. 
It made me realize AGAIN though; I can’t plan things like this anymore. 
Sunday. We really needed to visit in-law family for something very important. I almost always fail with in-law visits because they all live far away and it’s a big family so they always involve a lot of people (I love them though!). Maybe it was because I stayed home the day before, but I held myself together for the entire day! It was really good to be there, but exhaustion was a thing.
Back to the stove
Mon/Tues. Not much time to rest! I had 2 days left to polish our old stove. Which is a long time for a normal person. Which I am not. I spent 5 (!) hours cleaning the darn thing, but I have to say; it looked fab!! I was now worried that the new stove would be 1mm wider, and wouldn’t fit the gap. That would be a problem.
New stove was delivered, up the stairs in literally 20 seconds (bye money). But hey, the stairs weren’t too steep! Deliveries (or whatever thing that involves other humans) cost quite some brain capacity for me, but another thing was done! We then had our weekly online Spanish lesson (stress!), and then it was too dark to take pictures. THEN we had a meeting with residents of our apartment building to talk about all of the issues with our owners Association. Also done.
Wednesday. I took pictures of the old stove still built-in in good daylight and posted them on Market place (am I the only one who thinks selling on Market place is stressful?). The installer came later that day to install the new one, and HURRAY, it fitted!! 
Our kitchen needs work, but the stove is PRETTYY!! 
(Below: before, during, after.)
Kingsday preppings 👑
It was only now that I regained mental space to think about Kingsday. The plan was to attend a pre-Kingsday flea market on the 26th, and one on the 27th (Kingsday itself). Nearly all of the stuff was stored at my niece’s house, who has a large house with multiple rooms she doesn’t use. We actually meant to sell this at a flea market last August, but this one was cancelled due to rain.
My planning was getting tight; I only had Wednesday evening left to get my parents’ spare car at their place, squeeze in a gym session, and get all the stuff at my niece’s house. In the meantime, my husband had hustled 2 clothing racks. Status at the end of the day: our house stuffed with 2 large racks and a small mountain of stuff.
Thursday. I really underestimated the time it takes to unwrinkle clothes that have been in bags for over 6 months. I spent the entire day ironing, but also sorting the clothes and pricing them. There was a new problem though; the website about the pre-KD flea market stated that it started from 3:00 pm. Before that, no one was allowed to even mark a spot with ropes, or put down a blanket. I called the municipality to ask how they were going to manage this, and also if we could park nearby, but no one here knew sh*t. So.. should we be prepared for total mayhem? Should we bring helmets? 
Flea market 1 📦
Friday! The first flea market. We planned to be there at 1:30 pm. We had no clue if anyone would be there already, if people would be ready to fight for a spot at 3:00 pm (I imagined the sound of a whistle and people fighting for their lives), or if people already picked a spot anyway, and we also didn’t know if we could even park. But on our way in the car I noticed this, which was an eye opener for me;
This wasn’t a trigger situation. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but there was no panic, only worries. I knew this was “good” exposure; at the end of the day I was gonna look back and think: this wasn’t so bad! It made me realize there is a ginormous difference between forcing a trauma trigger situation (doing it even though everything about it feels bad), and doing something you “just don’t like”. Very important for anyone who deals with this!
Upon arrival, the parking garage we aimed for was full. We found another parking spot, quite far away, but decided to see if we had to claim a spot at the market first. We grabbed some things (mainly blankets), and I KID YOU NOT. The entire city was a full blown flea market in full operation!! 
While walking around in confusion to see if there would even be a spot left, we heard people say they had been here since 8:00 am. HOW was this possible??
Long story short. At the very beginning of the market, other people who just arrived were marking a spot. Next to them, there was still a tiny space on the sidewalk (the LAST spot). No idea if we were allowed to sit there, but I didn’t waste another second and dumped our blankets here. It took hub 45 minutes to carry all the stuff from the car to our spot (those were LONG minutes!), but in the end it was fine! Everyone who entered the market here checked out our stuff!
We made quite some money, and got rid of quite some stuff. We had to pay a quarter of our earnings for parking but whatever. It was a good day! If I would have know that it would start at 8:00 am, I wouldn’t have gone. So in the end, things worked out fine. 
Flea market 2 📦
Saturday. Yeah well. It would have been great, had the weather been nice. My weather app said it would only rain a tiny bit before the opening of the market. But once we were there, my nephew (there to help us) said some serious rain was on it’s way. Had I known this, I would have cancelled it, but we already had a spot with all of our stuff ready. We sold a few things, but then it started to rain harder by the minute, and everything got wet. We left after 2 hours. Great times with great people though!
I now had a house filled with an old stove, 2 large racks with (still quite some) wet clothes, and more wet stuff. 
But hey, the 2 weeks of ongoing stress were over! Now the “only” thing I needed to finish was my website and my first (very long) post, that of course needed to be perfection, which is unattainable for me. 
I eventually finished those on Monday, still with stuff everywhere.
I think we’ll store the flea market items again, and wait for another flea market. More decluttering is necessary and although I pretty much hate selling my stuff to strangers, earning money is a good declutter motivation for me. 😏
Next? ⏯️
Today is Wednesday the 1st of May. I launched my website and updated Insta at Sunday night (literally at night because I had a very hard time figuring out my Insta credentials.. 
). Now it’s really time to make concrete plans for the upcoming months.
Small steps: I still have to sort the flea market stuff and sell the stove (we only got 2 bids from weirdo’s, both sending me “Hello B, €200.”, which might be the same person but with a different name. And I don’t want to sell my beloved stove to people who can’t even send a normal message.)
And we can now finally do a make-over for the kitchen, which I’m looking forward to! 
We were also fixing my husband’s home office, which is used as storage most of the time. I also want to think about an art style for inspirational Insta posts, because it’s low level; I don’t have to sell it, and it doesn’t have to be good enough for someone else’s standard. So that’s next!
Thanks for reading! 
